725,000 public sector jobs face axe, economist warns

ILW

marklv wrote: »

So what is your point? Are we here to worship soldiers? Soldiers do a job - a job like any other - and they accept the risks when they first take up that job. They know the risks. This country does not have a military culture, it has a civilian one, and I don't believe that servicepeople should be treated any differently from other public servants. You can curse and swear as much as you like it, but this is the way it is.

You truly are a very sad person.
Bet you would go squealing to the union if you got a paper cut.

marklv

simongregson wrote: »

If everyone could get an A grade then there would be no point in having exams.

The reality is that a teacher is one of many factors that can affect childrens' achievement. Someone may have a fantastic teacher, but still not do as well as they could due to illness/family problems/lack of revision at home/parents took them on holiday during exams etc. etc. Equally some children have poor teachers but still do well in exams, due to other positive influences on their lives such as parents suporting them to do homework, purchasing revision guides, money spent on tuition etc.

So it is really a difficult area to assess. There is actually performance related pay for teachers to an extent, based on their classes as a whole making above average progress. I'll leave the more sensible here to imagine what teaching teenagers would be like if they thought they could get your pay cut if they did less work and messed about more!!

Well, from what I've seen, most kids these days already seem to get A grades for almost anything! Give everyone an A grade and it demeans the significance of it. In the late 70s and early 80s, when I was at secondary school, exams were tough. To get an A grade you had to be truly brilliant in your subject, not just good. Good students got Bs. Now getting A grades even in A levels seems to be the norm, which makes the system a joke. They need to bring back competitive quotas for each grade to stop this nonsense.

And as for teachers being paid according to pupil grades, this is simply the usual rubbish that White Horse (the board's village idiot) comes up with repeatedly. He must be a salesman, as everything he advocates is target based.

marklv

ILW wrote: »

You truly are a very sad person.
Bet you would go squealing to the union if you got a paper cut.

But what I say is true. Of course it's very tragic to see an 18 year old being shot to death in Afghanistan, but he volunteered for this! We do not have a conscript army. He would have been told numerous times of the risks before he joined. It's a dangerous job, like other dangerous jobs.

2001GT

The military is much like the rest of the public service......for every one person out on the 'front line' doing a worthwhile job, there are hundreds skulking around in the background picking up very good salaries for doing very little work.

tartanterra

marklv wrote: »

But what I say is true. Of course it's very tragic to see an 18 year old being shot to death in Afghanistan, but he volunteered for this!

What a sad and shameful statement.

I think that you will find that many in the Armed Forces volunteered to do a sometimes dangerous job.
I doubt anyone in the Armed Forces has volunteered to be killed.

robin_banks

tartanterra wrote: »

What a sad and shameful statement.

I think that you will find that many in the Armed Forces volunteered to do a sometimes dangerous job.
I doubt anyone in the Armed Forces has volunteered to be killed.

But you do join up in the knowledge you are likely to be deployed in a war zone at some point in your career.

tartanterra

robin_banks wrote: »

But you do join up in the knowledge you are likely to be deployed in a war zone at some point in your career.

Obviously.

That's a completely different scenario from volunteering to be killed.

robin_banks

tartanterra wrote: »

Obviously.

That's a completely different scenario from volunteering to be killed.

Of course, though I do wonder why we need to biggest landforce in Europe, we are an island after all.

tartanterra

robin_banks wrote: »

Of course, though I do wonder why we need to biggest landforce in Europe, we are an island after all.

No idea.
However, the size of the Army is not a decision for your average squaddie; that's a decision for your elected politicians.
Much the same as decisions to deploy to a warzone.

Is it possible that our Forces are relatively large compared to our European neighbours because our politicians like throwing their weight around the world?

The_White_Horse

soldiers get paid roughly what they deserve. if they didn't we wouldn't have enough soldiers. no one would join up. if they paid soldiers 1m a year, we may get even more volunteers willing to risk their lives.

my view is that a soldier signs up to do whatever is asked of them and be deployed wherever they are sent. I hate all this "my son joined to defend England, not patrol Afghanistan". Rubbish - your son joined to do whatever he was told by his superiors.

then we have to think - what sort of person actually wants to sign up for the army? not me. it never crossed my mind. people are not forced to do it. These are people that want action and adventure, who possibly like guns and the thought of shooting guns. You live by the sword, then you might die by the sword.

Whilst it is sad that some soldiers die, its not something to get overly upset about. they knew the risks and volunteered to be there. However, what is totally unacceptable is soldiers dying purely because they are not receiving adequate equipment. that is a disgrace.